


The Depth of Black

by WedoMorrison (metalwurm)



Series: Golden Grain and Bird Bone [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background platonic relationship, Blind Soldier: 76, Blind!Soldier: 76, Body Horror, Claws, Cordyceps Levels of Creepy, Fluff and Angst, Gabe has zero concept of personal space, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mostly Blind but not Fully, Nanites, Nightmares, Other, Post-Recall, Reaper doing Freaky Shit TM with his body, Scarred Jack, Sharing a Bed, Slime, Tentacles, Weird and Vaguely Horrifying Displays of Affection, Wraith Form, Wraith Healing, aka Gabe makes Jack eat soul bits to heal, because wraith form, but not really, sharp teeth, still fuzzy on the whole does eating a soul count as cannibalism thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalwurm/pseuds/WedoMorrison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several smoky tendrils reached up towards him, waving gently as though they were grain in a breeze. The red core leaned near, close enough that Reaper could easily grab at him but instead he kept reaching, waiting for Jack to make the first move. The visor had trouble reading him in his current form, and when he extended his left hand toward the fuzzy, glitchy mass the lack of depth perception caused him to bump into his root-like reaches instead of just closing the gap. The tendrils wrapped gently around his fingers and slipped under the sleeve to slither up his arm. He could feel his cold touch spreading under his jacket, slick against his skin where he pooled and rippled around his torso. His core settled over his chest, nestled beneath his clothes and his heartbeat pulse steady and calm, the hundreds of tendrils wrapped around and burrowed into his body affixing him there. Jack knew he should have been in pain but he wasn't, aware only of the persisting star-like points of cold where the nanites passed through his skin, forming strange and unearthly constellations in his flesh. The way he rooted into him, wound through and around his bones like a gnarled, ancient tree, bound them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Soot of Long-Gone Fires

**Author's Note:**

> The long-awaited sequel to _And the Predator Consumes_! Sadly not as much in the way of violence but plenty of body horror and Feelings. A set-up for following fics in the series, and lots of character establishment. Gabe is gonna do really weird shit because he's made of nanites and nanobots and lbr, anyone made of those is gonna do weird shit when they want to sleep or move or anything really. Who's ready for gooey nanite naps? ;P
> 
> [EDIT 7-23-16]: updated the German to be less terrible, thank you ayola!
> 
> The pendant will have importance later on. ;P

Recovery hadn't been as gentle or fast as Jack would have liked. Whatever Reaper—whatever _Reyes_ —had done to save his life both baffled and frightened Angela. He supposed he should refer to her as Dr. Zeigler, but he had a hard time seeing past the memories of a bright-eyed and hopeful kid that wanted to save lives that he'd brought in to Overwatch all those years, all those lifetimes, ago. She fussed over him constantly, talking to herself in rapid fire German that Jack was far too rusty to keep up with. He would watch her work, marveling at how her practiced fingers made her tools almost come alive at her touch. She looked as though she hadn't aged a day, but he could see wrinkles and creases set in her skin when she focused on his wounds intently.

His vision and hearing on the right side were almost nonexistent; without the visor his damaged senses rendered him useless in combat. Even enhanced, people didn't just walk away from explosions scott-free, he learned that well enough. His fingers on his right hand were numb and clumsy on the best of days, a piece of shrapnel that had sliced bone-deep near his elbow had eluded even Angela's attempts to mend. Burns had disfigured his face nearly beyond recognition; from the bridge of his nose down was a swath of stringy, angry red scars, his nose was practically gone, flat, nostrils exposed, batlike, and his canine and surrounding teeth shown through a ragged hole on his left cheek and lips. He kept it covered by the mask at all times he was outside of his quarters or the med bay; he could see enough with his left eye to get around the familiar base, but he didn't want to disgust or startle the newer, younger members that had been recruited. He remembered little of the actual explosion, but he did know it had come from his right, and the massive scarring and damage he'd sustained on that side of his body supported that. Now his left side was a mass of scab and scar, the large chunks of tissue that had been torn away by Reaper's weapon being slow to regenerate even at his advanced rate. It was almost amusing in a poetic sort of way that he'd match the damage he was certain Reyes himself had suffered in the fall of the Swiss base.

"I don't understand it," Angela's voice was clipped with frustration, tapping a pair of tweezers against the side of her glasses, "but it doesn't seem to be giving you septicemia, despite how terrible it looks. I'll keep you on antibiotics until... whatever is happening ends." She didn't like not knowing what was happening, he could tell, and the way her eyes crinkled and mouth pouted reminded him so much of her in her youth. It was so easy to sink into the memories of the good days, how Gabe and himself had fallen into a relaxed parental role for her after she'd joined Overwatch. He felt her sterile gloved fingers probe gently at his ribcage, the light touch still enough to press into the spongy grey tissue, which didn't rebound and held the indent of her touch for many seconds afterwards. His whole side was slathered in the off-colored tissue, reeking of decay and rot and yet there was no infection to be found. The patch was shiny and wet with the look of dead flesh, still felt cold and lifeless, but the muscle his body was growing around it was healthy and pink. The smaller injuries he'd gotten had already scabbed over and healed, little more than new marks to add to his growing mosaic of scars.

"Get some rest, doc. It's late and I'm pretty sure I'll last the night." Jack wasn't one to tease often, but he chalked it up to the generous painkillers Angela had given him with the last round of antibiotics. Turned out getting blasted with a shotgun at point-blank range hurt a hell of a lot more than the self-cauterizing pulse rounds most weaponry used nowadays. "... 'sides, _Schnuckeli_ , its almost two in the morning, way past your bedtime." Angela exhaled loudly through her nose and the corner of her mouth ticked up at the old endearment, leaning down to press a quick kiss to the top of his head.

"Versuch ein wenig zu schlafen." She said into his snowy hair, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze of understanding as she checked the IV drip into his right hand before collecting her things to leave. _Try to sleep a little_. She turned the lights down as she left; it was dim enough that Jack could sleep, but bright enough that he could make out enough detail to see if something were to startle him. There was an unspoken understanding of Jack's limitations between the two, something he was endlessly thankful for.

The cot was soft and larger than the one in his quarters and while he was not unthankful for it he missed the perfect familiarity of his own room. He knew where everything was in that small space, had it mapped and memorized down to the dip in the floor near the west wall and the soft buzz the entry panel made a couple seconds before opening the door. Here he was more unsure of his surroundings, the glass and shiny chrome paneling playing havoc with his damaged vision, and it made him feel exposed. He knew the pulse rifle was only a few feet away at the foot of the bed, propped against the footboard, but it was little comfort when he knew he'd be too slow to reach it if he really needed it while he was in this condition.

He stifled a grunt as he tried to get comfortable, his side and its alien flesh tender and sore. His lungs had healed up within the first week, his breath no longer stained with the hints of black smog. He laid on his right side, both to ease the pain of his mending torso, but to keep his good ear and good eye unhindered. Despite the familiar surroundings he couldn't let himself get too complacent. He didn't want to fall in with the small, frayed group Winston had managed to gather; he was on a mission, and with Reyes now a factor he couldn't waste any time here. He couldn't help him from here, though, injured and exhausted and hardly able to walk, let alone fight. Jack let his eyes close and he exhaled slowly through his nose, body slowly unraveling some of the built-up tension. Sleep was quick to claim him.

Dreams were rare for him, but what felt like mere seconds after he drifted to sleep did swirls of color appear before his closed eyes, slowly taking shape. Violet, grey and black smoke rippled and flowed like a living thing, circling and dancing around him as if to music he couldn't hear. He could see every flutter of movement, every current of air that swirled through the smoke; it was a dream, he knew he'd never be able to see that clearly again, even with the visor. The weightless mass shifted, pouring into the empty space around him, covering his feet and snaking up higher. The smoke sucked the warmth out of his legs and his knees buckled; he would have crashed down into the pooling mist if strong hands hadn't grabbed his arm, holding him up.

He snapped his gaze up and blinked in shock, realizing that Gabe was holding him up, his brown eyes warm and full of life. It startled Jack so much that he froze, the creeping cold of the smoke coiling up past his hips entirely forgotten. He could never forget Gabe's face but seeing it again, alive and unblemished by the explosion, made the ghostly image of Reaper's face that was burned in his memory seem almost alien. A flash of metal at the man's throat drew his eyes, the glittering pendent of Santa Muerte he wore around his neck standing out against his dark uniform. It made him pause, throat tight and heart skipping as memories threatened to bubble up and burst. The smoke had advanced far enough to wrap around his arms and chest, cold and _burning_ where they touched, dragging his attention away from Gabe. The smog dug into his side, tearing through the delicate tissue and spreading like black little roots.

When he looked back up Gabe was gone, Reaper's scarred face and his gleaming red eyes replacing him. Jack pulled back on reflex but Reaper's claws grabbed at his shoulders, the bladed edges cutting into his flesh. Jack tried to call his name but all that left his mouth was black mist, the creeping fog winding up his throat and inching over his face. He watched those hands move and suddenly felt Reaper's thumbs, and the claws that adorned them, sink into the hollow above his clavicle, hot pain lancing through his body as the smoke poured into the wound. He could feel it dripping over his heart, his ribs, filling him with deathly cold. His head spun from pain and sudden weakness, Reaper stepping closer and bloodied hands moving to cradle his neck and chin, form gone wispy and roiling with smoke as the frail vestige of humanity fell from him.

Underneath was a monstrous figure. Bone white teeth of razored sharpness glittered in his jaws, inhuman and predatory, thrusting out of a broad, jutted muzzle that reminded him of the holotapes of orcas he watched as a kid. Glowing crimson patches covered where he guessed human eyes would go, glittering and pulsing like swirling pools of liquid ruby. There was no human structure left at all, only animalistic design that suited his feral nature. The flesh was inky and shiny like oil, rippling and flowing, dripping sluggishly into Jack's hair and onto his face in thick, fat drops. The jaws worked and saliva shone silver on the deadly teeth, hot breath washing over his face as a large, flat black tongue lolled out. He felt it press under his chin, tilting his gaze up to see down the cavernous maw while the pike-like teeth framed his vision. Reaper laughed, the same pleased tone of a predator set upon its prey, the wicked teeth and crushing jaws snapping shut as a rumbling voice burst out of Gabe's throat with a cloud of black smoke.

_**"Es tu culpa."**_

Jack jolted awake with a gasp, hands flying up to his face as if to ward off the nightmare's dagger teeth. The dim, blurry surroundings came into focus slowly, a ragged exhale leaving his lungs as the fact that it was all a dream settled in. His heart pounded in his ears, slowly fading off into a few bright, metallic clinks. _Wait_. He lurched up into a sitting position and produced a pistol from under his pillow, instincts guiding him to level it directly between the eyes of the trespasser. His hand shook from his damaged nerves, and with his perpetually foggy vision it was hard to clearly see his target but it didn't matter, he knew who it was before he'd even drawn the firearm.

"... what are you doing here, Reyes?" Jack hissed, his aim unwavering from the dark mass perched on one of the uncomfortable med-wing chairs near the foot of his bed. He heard Gabe's deep, throaty chuckle bubble up from under the mask, the metallic clinking continuing as Reaper fiddled with something small and shiny in his metal claws. Jack's heart thumped and then stopped. _The pendant_. On blind instinct his hand groped at his own throat, even though he knew it couldn't be safely around his neck with Reaper holding it a few yards away. The shoving, the screaming, the grabbing and tugging at the pendant until it tore from Gabe's throat seconds before the explosion rocked the Swiss Watchpoint filled his head. He felt sick to his stomach almost immediately. He could only watch as Reaper lifted the metal piece higher, as if admiring it, before his interest in it seemed to abruptly end. The sharp claws deposited it into one of his many pockets.

"Just checking up on some old haunts." Reaper's voice was flat and monotone, and he wasn't sure if he was joking or not. He stood and walked almost soundlessly to the bedside, Jack keeping the small 9mm trained on his every move. He had no way of knowing what Gabe's intentions might be; he had no way of knowing a lot of things, now. The barrel of the pistol was roughly shoved downward by his clawed hand and Jack, at first hesitant, relented and let him guide the weapon's aim harmlessly to the floor. He only stopped when it, and Jack's hand, were pressed down into the mattress under his palm, useless, careful not to disturb the cannula from the medicated saline drip on top of his hand. "Well enough to be a thorn in my ass, are you Morrison?" he almost heard a chuckle, though it was buried somewhere under the rough grate of his voice as he sat on the edge of the cot, his weight making it dip. The free hand pawed at his side, asking permission, and when he didn't flinch away did he pull up the flimsy medical gown—it had cartoon frogs printed over it and he was secretly thankful that Reaper seemed indifferent—to expose his side.

Jack tried not to shiver as the silver claws trailed lightly over healing skin, tracing absent circles over the union of living and dead flesh. Something akin to dread built in his stomach just seconds before Gabe sank his claws into the yielding grey tissue, chunks of it dropping down onto the white sheets below. The pain hit him like a baseball bat, a pitiful wheeze of shock escaping him as the claws began to scrape across the pink, healthy muscle hidden underneath. In a sudden, fluid motion Reaper swiped the pistol out of his slackened grip, deftly avoiding the drip line, sending it clattering off across the floor; when Jack jerked backwards, fearing a blow, he could see Gabe's eyes, red and gleaming, shining under the mask and the horror of the nightmare threatened to overtake him. He inhaled sharply to alert ATHENA but Reaper was quicker, pushing his mask up—he looked almost human, Jack noticed in the half-second of eye contact, skin kissed with color and missing flesh filled in—and darting forward, crashing his mouth into Jack's and swallowing whatever warning that had built on his tongue. His sharp teeth clacked almost painfully against his own, the taste of copper coating his tongue as one of those fangs caught his lip; he had no way of knowing if it had been an accident or not.

His eyes watered from pain, but even through the tears and his permanently blurry vision he knew the dancing mist surrounding Reyes wasn't a trick of the dim light. Something slithered under the gown and crept up his old scarred ribs; his milky right eye couldn't see it but he remembered the feeling, knew it was one of his shadowy tendrils seeking an anchor point. He made a soft, frightened noise in the back of his throat but Gabe devoured it greedily and chased after it with his long, slimy tongue. It felt like congealed oil in his mouth, nearly making him gag, but he resisted the instinctual urge to bite down on it. Cold air filled his mouth, was forced down his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to keep his lungs from spasming as stinging smoke filled them. It tasted heavy, like how the scent of living things hung in the air during the humid summers of his youth in the country, and it felt almost viscous in his chest. The pain in his side flared and suddenly stopped, now more of a cold, aching buzz as Reaper's hand turned to smoke inside of it; it reminded him, dimly, of the pin-prick pains of the biotic field nanites as they stitched his flesh back together on the field.

Gabe laughed, quiet and low, into his mouth before he broke the kiss as the tension started to drain from his body, muscle by muscle. The pain diminished with it and soon enough Jack was leaning heavily onto his shoulder, letting him support his weight, exhaling the red and black smoke that coated and rested thick in his lungs like a slurry of volcanic ash. It felt as though the strength had been bled out of him, as if he was a stag with a hunter's arrow piercing his chest, letting his lifeblood pour to the dark soil below; he wasn't sure if it was his own exhaustion or if it was Reaper's doing. He felt his smoky form reach out to envelop him, folding over his back, coiling around limbs, slipping under the loose medical robe, rubbing almost tenderly at the mass of bubbled scar tissue from Zürich along his right shoulder and side. All thoughts of summoning ATHENA flitted from his mind when he felt Gabe press his face into his scraggly white hair then nose down behind his ear, his beard prickly and coarse against his skin where he nuzzled into his neck, grinning. His hair, dark and curly and longer than he expected, tickled his cheek when his hood fell back to pool behind his broad, armored shoulders.

The misted claws in his side clunked painfully against bone, Jack's whole body shuddering and a pained noise wheezing through his nose. He reached to push Reaper's arm away on instinct but solid talons wrapped around his wrist, pushing his hand gently but firmly down to rest in his lap. In the back of his mind he knew he should have taken the chance to call for help—Reaper _worked for Talon_ for fuck's sake—but he let himself selfishly indulge in Gabe's closeness, the physical contact, the touch of claws and lips on his skin. It'd been so long he was _starved_ for it. He twined his fingers with Gabe's, feeling how he hesitated for a brief moment before doing the same. He felt his mouth tick up into a smirk where it was still pressed against his throat, a sound somewhere between a purr and a sigh rumbling in his chest as he began to rub his clawed thumb in soothing circles over his knuckles.

"You soft old fool," Reyes started, pulling away from where he'd hidden his face in the crook of his neck, "the only reason I'm helping your dumb ass is because I want to kill you proper, on my terms, with my own two hands when I will it. Not a moment sooner." Jack cracked open his left eye, having been close to zoning out on his shoulder, but his expression only changed when he saw Gabe's face. He'd looked almost human earlier but now he looked more ragged, swathes of raw tissue and exposed tendons forming a patchwork over his bloodless face. He could see almost all of his jagged blade-like teeth, his cheeks little more than strips of elastic flesh anchored to his lower jaw by gnarled, grainy scars. His eyes were the hungry gleaming red again, dark smog leaking from the holes in his mouth with every breath.

Jack couldn't hide the way his heart thudded, the nightmare swirling in his brain again. He swallowed it down and leaned up until he was eye to eye with Reyes, waiting a breath to see if he'd pull back. He didn't. Jack closed the remaining distance, pressing a chaste kiss to his forehead; there wasn't enough of his lips left to kiss him there without those sharp teeth of his slicing his lip open again. Gabe's eyes narrowed a bit when he pulled back slightly, the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes that deepened when he pouted that Jack had so loved when they were younger crinkling into view on his parchment-rough skin. There wasn't enough flesh to actually pout but it didn't matter because Jack knew he was anyway. Even after so long he could read his body language like an open book. He knew he would have blushed if he still had his earlier, more human-like appearance, but instead he inhaled hard, puffed his chest out proudly, letting his forehead thunk against Jack's; their noses would have been mashed together if Jack hadn't lost his in the explosion. He knew Reyes was trying to be intimidating, but just like before it only endeared him more to Jack.

"You should stay, Reyes. Here." He watched Gabe's expression pinch, eyes squinting suspiciously and his earlier inhale exhaled hard through his nose as black fog. Gabe opened his mouth to reply. "With me," he added quickly, "since we're both after the same people from the looks of it, _Reaper_ , why not pool our resources?" the corner of his mouth lifted a bit into a lopsided smile, unable to help himself when it came to the rather... forced use of Gabe's new alias, "... 'sides, how can you kill me if some punk gets a lucky shot in before you? Can't kill me if I'm already dead." Reyes swallowed, working his jaw—a nervous habit he's always had, though much more menacing now with the sharp teeth—as he mulled over the information. He knew he was deep in thought as his form flickered and frayed at the edges, the heavy smoke lapping at his body and the thick tendrils coiled around him moving against his skin as if he was tapping his finger on a desk.

"Maybe I should, Morrison. Or should I call you _Soldier 76_? It's much easier to kill someone when I know where they go to lick their wounds," He felt more of the ropey shadows creep up around him and the claws buried in his side twitch but he barely reacted, his gut telling him it was all show, "or wait until I get hungry and devour you in your sleep, or even make off with Overwatch's secrets when no one is looking!" He accentuated his point with exaggerated gesturing, and it took everything Jack had not to laugh. He didn't care if Reyes truly planned to kill him the next time he let his guard down; he'd rather die by his hand with a few more good memories of him to take to the grave than bleed out alone in some dark alley. "But first..." the sudden statement threw off Jack's train of thought, and he barely suppressed a gasp as he felt Gabe's talons go solid within him, a hot burst of pain lancing up his side as he withdrew, "... there. Now you can get back out on the field. I don't want you getting all fatty and chewy laying around all day." Gabe made a show of licking his claws clean of his blood, and Jack was almost ashamed of the twinge he felt in his lower belly. Almost.

"We'll talk it over in the morning," Jack mumbled, running his hand over his side, now clean of the dead flesh and filled in with pink, healthy tissue, "you'll have to use your knack for sweet talk to warm Winston up to the idea. The others—hey, don't give me that look you're the one that picked a fight with him in the first place, Reyes—the others will probably be wary too. Most of them don't know who I am, and I'd like to keep it that way."

Reyes growled low in his throat, but didn't actively protest. Jack counted that as a small victory.

"Fine," he spat out, "I'll just make sure to use every embarrassing nickname I have for you instead." Jack let out a long suffering sigh and let himself fall back dramatically to his pillow, hiding his amused reaction to how pleased Reyes looked at his 'outburst'. He adjusted the blanket and gingerly rolled onto his left side, eager to sleep like a regular human being after a week of sleeping deathly still to avoid pain. He knew he should have found it alarming at how easy it was to relax and let his guard drop with Reaper still on the cot, tendrils still entwined around his body, but he didn't care. He was tired and accepted whatever may happen.

"There's another cot in the next room." He said simply, not bothering to look over his shoulder at him. He heard him grunt in reply, felt him shuffle around before a soft _clink_ told him he'd removed his mask and dropped it on the nearby exam table. He was surprised, however, when he felt Reyes settle into the cot with him, form dissolving into dense smoke that flowed over him like water. A half-second of panic sparked in his chest before he realized that he wasn't hurting him and there wasn't any pain. It didn't feel anything like those terrifying hours in that dark little room, instead it felt like walking through the thin fog that clung to wheat in the morning, chilled and heavy but pleasant against his skin. Gabe's body had no solid parts anymore, a formless mist that slipped under the blankets, sought out his body like roots desperate for water and condensed into a dense, oily fluid. It felt alien and strange; red was swirled through the thickest part that had amassed against his chest, pulsing gently like a heartbeat. When the thick tendrils stopped wrapping around and anchoring to his body did Reyes go very still, the weight of him slowly pressing down until Jack supported him fully, as if he'd finally let himself relax.

Jack hadn't shared a bed in so long that he almost didn't know what to do with himself. He wriggled and moved until he was more comfortable, Reyes immediately uncoiling or shifting when prompted, until both of them worked out how to deal with the other's presence so close. He felt like he was in the deadly embrace of a jellyfish but oddly he wasn't as alarmed as he figured he should have been. He let his eyes close and tried to ignore how strange Reyes felt in his current form, and even with his occasional quivers and curious touches, he started to lose time and flit in and out of light sleep. He didn't realize when he dropped off, and only became aware of it when he felt one of the cool, smooth tendrils brush gently, adoringly, down his scarred face, and heard Gabe whisper something so softly he thought he had imagined it.

_Mi cielo_


	2. A Cage of Claws and Pinions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2! Lots more body horror, some world and backstory building, questionable intentions and petty bickering! What more could you want? The third fic in the series will probably be posted sometime after I get home from my vacation on the 15th of August. Until then, I hope this tides you over!

Jack's hearing had always been the first to respond to stimulus, and while he was asleep that was no different. A whisper of movement, crinkling the papery sheets of the cot crept through the black of his sleep. His sense of touch was the second to return, the gentle pulse of Gabe's liquid body around him reassuring him at once that the previous night had happened, and that it hadn't been a baseless dream. He went to take a deep breath but choked, realizing suddenly that his nose and mouth were blocked. He tried to cough but his lungs contracted around a cold mass, some of it oozing in his throat, and his hindbrain screamed _suffocation, drowning, death_. He tried again to fill his lungs, gasping desperately, clawing at his own chest and throat and feeling Gabe's slimy form ripple and flow around him, active and awake.

 _Stop_ , he thought he heard Reyes whisper, the voice soft and coming from all around him as though the air itself was speaking. The red glow grew stronger at his chest, the fluid inside of him twitching and expanding, working his lungs like the bellows of a forge. In his animal panic Jack didn't realize that he wasn't suffocating, that he'd been receiving oxygen the whole time. His heart was hammering behind his ribs even as he tried to calm himself down. Gabe moved like water, some of his tendrils rubbing firmly but carefully at his neck and chest; Jack tried to fight the urge to cough but a heavy blow between his shoulderblades startled him enough that his concentration faltered. He heaved. When he frantically inhaled he only fleetingly noticed that the mass in his chest had turned to smoke, which his body easily expelled in a short, frantic burst of coughing. The fog resolidified in front of him, rejoining the amorphous mass that made up Gabriel.

"W-what the fuc—"

"You stopped breathing." Gabe replied, clipped, matter-of-factly, "You did the same thing in Germany before I brought you here." Jack blinked and was quiet for a long minute, processing, before he grunted and pushed himself up into a proper sitting position. Gabe shifted around so he could do so but didn't let go; if anything he just wriggled until he was more firmly anchored to his upper body. He could see more of his viscous flesh on him than of his own pale skin, and he could pick out a few scant patches of the cartoony frogs smiling on the thin gown. He scrubbed at his face and took another deep breath, but when he exhaled there was no smoke to be seen.

"Lungs are shit, happens sometimes," Jack eventually said, "don't have to get all worried. You're worse than a first lay hen, Reyes." He hid his smirk when he felt Gabe go tight and tense around his body, able to picture his expression screwed up with indignant offense clear as day in his mind. It was harder to keep the grin off his face when he felt him peel off of him, pooling at the foot of the bed in a congealed, oily mass. The red swirling in the center gleamed an irritated crimson; he might have even blushed if he hadn't been mostly fluid.

"I'll just let you choke next time, Morrison." Reyes hissed, but it sounded hollow and not particularly threatening. Without his human form his voice sounded strange, rumbling and empty, as though he was hearing it through a shitty earpiece. Jack didn't respond and pulled himself up off of the bed, taking a moment to get his balance before he untied the papery gown and reached for his clothes folded on the counter. Angela, the dear, had put them through the wash and had patched up the holes Reaper had made in the jacket; he made a mental note to thank her later. The broken visor that Reyes had thoughtfully scooped up off of the German street was sitting on top, the broken glass replaced and the fried circuits repaired. If Gabe hadn't brought him back here to Watchpoint he knew he would have been in serious trouble. Winston was clever and knew his way around delicate equipment and electronics, and had fixed it good as new. Jack, on the other hand, could only repair his own equipment if he could see it, meaning damage to the visor was damning and crippling. He could feel Gabe's gaze on his naked back when he let the scrubs slip down his shoulders to crumple on the floor at his feet, even though he was fairly certain he didn't have any physical eyes to see with at the moment. His senses were probably as alien as his current appearance, but he dropped that train of thought as he removed the IV drip from his hand.

"Ain't nothing you haven't seen before, Reyes." Jack didn't bother with modesty, getting dressed into his clothes no more quickly than if he was alone. He and Gabriel had seen every inch of the other, intimately and otherwise, and he didn't care anymore now than he did before. He had to keep himself from rolling his eyes, though, when he heard Gabe try to whistle at him, although it sounded more like a fit of static than anything.

"I need you to take me outside." Gabe said suddenly after a long silence, still little more than a bubbling mass, though coiled in on himself uncomfortably. It gave Jack pause as he pulled on his jacket; his tone was serious but soft, almost ashamed. He made sure his chin piece was snug before clicking on the visor, inhaling sharply through his nose once the power cycled through. The filtered air that filled his lungs was cool, scrubbed clean, gentle on his burned lungs. It rendered his sense of smell useless but when it came to combat he gladly exchanged it for the treated air that let him run and fight without gasping for breath. The brief kick to his optic nerves still hurt even after all these years as the visor tapped into his central nervous system, the crisp red images relaying into his brain smoothly thereafter. He pulled on his gloves before he turned back around, hesitating at the foot of the bed where his pulse rifle leaned. He ignored it.

Several smoky tendrils reached up towards him, waving gently as though they were grain in a breeze. The red core leaned near, close enough that he could easily grab at him but instead he kept reaching, waiting for Jack to make the first move. The visor had trouble reading him in his current form, and when he extended his left hand toward the fuzzy, glitchy mass his lack of depth perception caused him to bump into his root-like reaches instead of just closing the gap. It didn't matter. The tendrils wrapped gently around his fingers and slipped under the sleeve, slithering up his arm. He could feel his cold touch spreading under his jacket, slick against his skin where he pooled and rippled around his torso. His core settled again over his chest, nestled under the jacket and his heartbeat pulse steady and calm, the hundreds of tendrils wrapped around and burrowed into his body affixing him there. Jack knew he should have been in pain but he wasn't, aware only of the persisting star-like points of cold where the nanites passed through his skin, forming strange and unearthly constellations in his flesh. The way he rooted into him, wound through and around his bones like a gnarled, ancient tree, bound them together.

He breathed in as deep as he could, testing, but he didn't feel constricted or tight in his chest despite Reaper's intrusion. He decided, then, that it was harmless. Only once he was sure that no part of his inhuman passenger was visible did he head out into the hallways. The base was mostly empty, with only a few people having responded so far to the Recall. Many had called in, according to Winston, but those many had established lives for themselves after the fall of Overwatch, lives they could not walk away from at the drop of a hat. Oxton was somewhere in the base, Amari's daughter as well, along with a few other people he didn't know. New recruits, Angela had told him, and the thought of people choosing to join in when they had no idea what they were getting into made him feel sick to his stomach.

He moved on autopilot, letting himself fall into his old memories of the base to carry him up and out onto an empty launchpad. There wasn't any reason for anyone to look for him here and the view wasn't terrible; it overlooked a cut cliff face and the frothing ocean beneath, but had no path down to the water. He sat down in a patch of thin grass, back to the rising sun, the light and its gentle warmth seeping into his tired joints and sore muscles. He felt Gabe stir under his jacket, probably sensing the warmth or some other weird nanobiotic thing that he was blind to. Jack could tell he was still anchored to his body, to his bones and limbs, but instead of detaching he branched out from under his clothes, seemingly growing from him into an oily film of nanites. Most of Gabe stayed liquid, settled placidly on him, but some filled the air around him in a thick fog. The light refracted and danced through the living smoke, glittering and delicate, every color imaginable playing off of the microscopic particles like so many gemstones in the thin sunlight. The visor couldn't pick it up like human sight but he could see the different wavelengths of light that were being thrown off by cycling through the settings and overlays, displayed as undulating patterns and shapes instead of colors.

Reyes shivered as he settled in, the swirled core resting across his shoulders like a serpent, the rest of his fluid form basking in the sun. He seemed to absorb the warmth of it, as even sitting in the same sun that Gabe sought out Jack felt cool where he was hidden under the shadowy mass. The thicker tendrils that were coiled around him moved constantly to support the both of them, snaking under and over and against him, while the inky surface that blanketed him writhed with movement; it felt as though there were thousands of living things crawling all over him. It made him shudder at first, an animal part of him telling him to get away, but he grew used to it soon enough. Sitting out in the open, exposed, made unease prickle in his brain, but Gabe's presence and reassuring weight was comforting. Any sniper fire would have to come from the base at his back, unlikely, and Gabe's senses were better than his own and would probably pick up on anything dangerous before he did. It was enough to lull him into a sense of security.

"You drag me out here just to watch the sunrise, Reyes?" Jack's voice was deeper, more mechanical when it came through the visor, "Seems like a lot of effort just to get me alone to eat." He sat still as the bulk of him shifted along his back, a tendril coiling up around his neck like the vine of a morning glory. The rumbling chuckle he got in response almost startled him as he felt it much more than heard it, the disembodied voice velvet and thick against his skin and where it resonated in his bones. He didn't want to acknowledge the fond warmth in his belly that blossomed in response.

"Keep talking and I just might, _cabrón_ ," his words filtered through the audio receivers of his visor, which amplified it enough for him to hear his teasing tone clearly, "I need the light. I exhausted myself last night and don't feel like eating you yet just so I can look human. I'll need a body to absorb soon, but I can get by with sunlight and cells for a few days if don't push it." Gabe punctuated his words with movement, letting a small section of his tarry body effervese to shed the dry, dead cells he had burned through the night prior. The black, crystalline grains floated weightlessly away on the seaborne breeze. "Cells can't live like this for long, I have to replace them constantly or I reduce to nanites until they find a host and rebuild me from scratch."

"Tellin' me an awful lot about how you tick," Jack mused, putting an arm behind him to steady himself and flexing his fingers as he felt a few wire-fine filaments thread through them when he settled, "that information might be dangerous in the wrong hands." Gabe made an annoyed noise and leaned against his back hard enough to nearly fold him forward, as if they'd been sitting back to back like in the good days.

"No more dangerous than the intel surrounding your eyesight and hearing, old man."

Jack hummed in response. That was true. They had each other in an informational stalemate. It did let things settle in his mind, however, knowing a bit of how Gabe worked now that he was more nanomachine than man. It would take a great deal of getting used to but after going through war and dying once already, very little had the capacity to truly unnerve him anymore. He moved his free arm up to rest on his knee while he let his left leg stretch out flat, noting how he felt tiny little pulls at his inside when he moved too quickly for Gabe to compensate. He'd probably been siphoning his blood and breaking down bits of tissue to stabilize himself since he'd let him crawl under his clothes. When he focused on his body he thought he could feel where he'd spread under his skin and into his muscles, filaments of cold that had grown and multiplied like fuzzy mats of mold. It was probably just his imagination; he tried not to think about it. He would have been disgusted, maybe, a lifetime ago, at the thought of letting someone feed off of him to live. Now he just acknowledged it and moved on with his thoughts. He was convinced it was nothing his enhancements couldn't account for.

"How long do you sit out here when you get like this?"

"Until I feel like going back inside. Why? You getting sunburned already, wedo?" Jack couldn't help but snort at the familiar insult.

"Just let me know when the _daisy_ has done enough photosynthesis for the day." He felt Gabe swell and deflate, as though letting out a deep, weary sigh. He smirked under his faceplate. It felt good to bicker with someone after so long of working on his own, even under such strange circumstances.

Gabe was silent for a long while and Jack found himself strangely relaxed. He watched the waves break against the rocky shore and listened to the seabirds that floated effortlessly on the ocean wind. Despite having been stationed at Watchpoint for years before Overwatch's collapse he had never really taken time to just sit and observe the surroundings, having been much too busy as Strike Commander. He wished he would have taken more time back then to stop and enjoy the rare moments of peace.

"You're taking this awfully well, Morrison," Reyes almost purred out, a thick tendril draping almost playfully over the front of his visor, blocking most of his field of vision, "Talon was quite fond of my methods of torture. Most people gave Talon what they wanted before I ate through all their organs, the ones that didn't, well..." the laughter that vibrated against his skin was thick as tar, and it raised the hair on the back of his neck. He felt one of Gabe's formless limbs slither against something in his belly, the slimy, cold sensation unnatural and alien.

"Oh I don't doubt it, your idea of cuddling has always been a fate worse than death." Jack expected the smack to the back of his head he got in response but it didn't stop him from saying it anyway, grinning under his mask when he heard the absolutely offended noise Gabe made. He seemed to settle after that, his focus shifting from teasing to making the most of the pleasant morning sun. Once it rose higher the temperature would rise with it, and even though Jack knew Gabe wouldn't be bothered he doubted he'd be able to stand it for too long.

He let his eyes slide shut behind the thick glass of the visor, the incessant buzz of the feedback filtering through his optic nerves slowing and stopping. He tried to keep his eyes closed as much as possible when he didn't need to focus on anything; cutting down the time he spent each day feeding raw visual data into his brain helped keep the crippling headaches that plagued him at bay. With Gabe covering much of the visor he saw no reason to keep them open.

He rarely slept more than a few hours at night, instead opting to rest in shifts; it was something he hadn't been able to shake since his days of active duty. He didn't really want to fall back asleep but he found himself dropping off and losing time anyway, his surroundings hazing and vanishing from his senses. Every time he returned to a half-awake state he realized Gabe was shifting his limbs while he dozed, his center creeping down his torso, tendrils probing at the mask as if seeking a way inside. He was too tired to care what he did; he hadn't been this exhausted when he woke up and he wondered, distantly, if it was Gabe's doing.

Jack was dimly aware of the passing of time, not sleeping but not aware either, but roused when Gabe suddenly went rigid around him and the core at his chest throbbed. He didn't remember lying down but he could feel the ground under his side, the chill of Gabe's touch covering almost every inch of him. A soft sound, a sigh of rubber soles against grit-covered tile cut through his relaxed state like a knife. He went to push himself up to face whatever had crept up on them but Reyes resisted it, his hold over him syrup thick and sticky as he fought to get an elbow propped under him to support his weight. Every movement was a struggle and when he tried to free his other arm Gabe clamped down on it; he felt like an animal trapped in tar, sinking deeper with each attempt to escape. His body was numb, limbs sluggish and heavy, and he realized his chest was tight where Gabe had retreated and filled the empty spaces behind his ribs as though he'd claimed it as a nest. It should have alarmed him, he knew that, but barely a ripple of concern flitted across his mind.

"Jack—!"

Angela. _Fuck._

He knew her pistol was drawn and trained on Gabe's shadowy mass even though he couldn't see her, the fog clouding his screen with glittering false-positives. He wriggled his other arm free, finally, and waved his hand down urgently. _Don't shoot. Lower your weapon._ The smoke pulled back to coil around his body, and he was relieved when he saw through the clear patches in the static that she had dropped her aim, but kept the weapon held firm and ready to fire at the slightest sign of distress. She'd never believe a word he said if she couldn't see his face, so he pulled against Gabe's sucking grip until he could reach his face. He grabbed at his visor's release and tugged it free when he heard the soft hiss of the air seal breaking, looking over to where he could see the flash of her white clothes against the amber backdrop of the rocks. The thin filaments that had crept over his mask now spread into the vacated space, grew delicately over his face like the roots of a seedling. He had no idea what Angela's expression was, but he could imagine that she definitely wasn't happy.

"Don't, don't. M'fine, Angie." Jack started, the pressure against his lungs preventing him from saying more than a few words at a time, "not hurting me. Just. Just took a nap, s'all." Gabe finally reacted and tugged free of where he'd stuck himself snuggly between his ribs, letting him breathe proper instead of feeding him the oxygen cellularly. The rapid change from Gabe's strange, and intensely _intimate_ , form of breathing to using his own two lungs left him dizzy for a moment. Had he been standing, he likely would have swayed; he was going to need to have a serious talk about Gabe's weird ideas of 'helping' later. He didn't realize that his exhaled breath was all black smoke, or that dark, congealed ooze dripped down his chin from his mouth and nose. His limbs tingled still, feeling slow to return where Gabe had rooted himself into his muscles and bones. There should have been pain. There wasn't any pain.

As Jack pushed himself up onto his hands and knees the weight of Reaper's form clinging to him began to lessen. It seemed to focus around his shoulders until the touch changed, solid, sharp claws materializing from the smoke. Reyes solidified into a more human form, crouched beside him with his body pressed against him to offer support. All at once warmth flooded back through his limbs and he felt overheated without Gabe's tendrils burrowed into him to siphon it off. His breathing hitched and he felt Gabe's claws slide down his back to wrap around his side, guiding him up until they both were on their feet. The claws didn't fall away once he was standing under his own power. He clipped his visor back on and let the scrubbed air fill his lungs, the display blinking back into operation. He was right, Angela looked pissed.

"I thought he was attacking you," Angela said, watching Reaper warily and her grip on the sidearm tightening, "you weren't moving, and you left your rifle by the bed. I found Reaper's mask and the pistol and thought that he'd come back and..." she trailed off, gesturing to the shadowy tendrils that, even then, were snaking possessively around his legs and hip as if he was planning to attack or eat him; Jack knew it was because Gabe wasn't focused and couldn't help it, or, at least, that's what he told himself. He hadn't stopped to think about what what his absence had to look like and felt guilty all at once, shoulders slumping submissively.

"I'm okay, I promise. We—he fixed my side and decided that he's going to join up with the Recall." Angela's expression betrayed absolute disbelief and mistrust for a half-second before she steeled herself. He could feel the pointed glare Gabe was burning into his head as if he'd just spilled some horrific secret. He ignored him. "He wanted to be outside and I must have fallen asleep." Angela's eyes narrowed and she cast Gabe a scrutinizing look.

"I need heat and sunlight to keep metabolic function. You know that, you designed the damn nanites that way." Gabe's voice could barely pass for human, but then again, he didn't look it either. His face was the same as the night before, if a little more whole. The decayed and dead patches had shrunken somewhat but the exposed bestial teeth and glowing eyes hadn't changed. Angela's expression didn't betray any of her thoughts, or her reaction. Jack remained quiet.

"My nanobots weren't designed to eat people, and yet you do. I thought maybe you would seek out sunlight but I couldn't be certain if you'd corrupted that out of them or not."

"Not to eat people, but to preserve life at any cost. I haven't corrupted a thing about them; if anything, I'm the perfect culmination of your work." Reyes spat out with a glut of smoke, viscious, "Your nanites kept what was left of me alive but even your _Godly_ technology couldn't build a functioning body from my half-dead scraps, so they made do with whatever raw cellular material they could strip from the dead to fill in the gaps. When what's left of me rejects that, it all dies, and I have to replace it." Gabe twisted what was left of his lips up into a snarl, yanking his sleeve up to show the sickly marbled pattern of living and dead flesh that made up his arm. Portions of it where his dark skin, but most of it was built of patches of white and other colors from the people he'd recently devoured. "Death never was an option for you, was it Angela?" Jack saw her flinch, and immediately grabbed at Gabe's arm, squeezing. He growled, low and feral, but swallowed the words still in his mouth and let his arm go lax in Jack's grip.

"... I don't—I might be able to help, Gabriel. You can't stay if you're a danger to Jack, or anyone else. I developed the nanites, if you let me try, I might be able to stabilize them enough so that you don't have to feed off of people." Angela's voice was pensive and deliberately cautious, but Gabe's reaction was unreadable. "It might help sway Winston's favor." The following silence that stretched between them held them immobile, neither willing to make a move. It was taking a toll on Jack's blood pressure.

"If you so much as try anything I don't approve of, Ziegler, I will kill everyone in the base." It wasn't a threat but a stern warning, and Angela slowly, finally, holstered her firearm. The tentative, shaky truce was hardly permanent, but at least it'd keep Reaper close and from sneaking off back to Talon. The thought of him going back to them bothered Jack more than he cared to admit. He knew that Gabe wasn't the same person he remembered so fondly in his memories, but, he wasn't the same Jack that he'd loved. He let his arm drop and sought out Gabe's hand, slotting his fingers in between his own. Reyes was still for a moment before curling his claws over his hand, reciprocating. It would be difficult, but Jack hoped to relearn the man that called himself Reaper, no matter the cost.

**Author's Note:**

> You can see more Overwatch stuff on [my Overwatch tumblr](http://wedomorrison.tumblr.com/)! The next fic in the series will likely be delayed until early September as I will be on vacation for a chunk of August.


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